The invention relates to apparatus for manipulating groups or arrays of rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus for transferring arrays of cigarettes or like articles from at least one intermittently driven article-supplying conveyor to at least one article-receiving conveyor. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for manipulating groups or arrays of cigarettes or other rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry which are about to be converted into packs or like products.
German Offenlegungsschrift No. 19 09 777 discloses an oscillatory carrier of arrays of rod-shaped articles which accepts arrays from an intermittently driven supplying conveyor and delivers the arrays to a continuously advancing receiving conveyor. The arrangement is such that the supplying conveyor is idle when the carrier receives an array therefrom, and the carrier thereupon accelerates the array to the speed of the continuously advancing receiving conveyor not later than during transfer of the array onto the receiving conveyor.
A drawback of the just described apparatus is that its capacity is limited, i.e., that the frequency at which the arrays are delivered to the receiving conveyor cannot be increased beyond a relatively low upper limit. Furthermore, the articles which form the arrays are not treated gently, especially if the frequency of delivery of arrays to the receiving conveyor is close to or reaches the aforementioned upper limit.